VWorker.com

I've been working through vWorker.com for years. In fact, when I started with the site, it was still called Rent-A-Coder. I have to say that I've never had any problems at vWorker. This does not, however, mean that I don't fear potential problems. I have, to date, always been paid on time, and I have a perfect 10 rating.

I've never had an issue getting work through the site, and in the past I was so fearful of not winning bids that I often bid on too many jobs - and then won them all, overtaxing myself quite a bit. That made for a lot of all-nighters on my end to finish all of the won bids in a timely manner!

There are drawbacks to VWorker. First, the competition is stiff - but not in the way that you may think. In terms of writing skill, I don't feel that I have an overwhelming amount of competition at the site. The problem comes from the fact that so many people will bid very low on jobs. This forces me to either bid low as well - agreeing to do a substantial amount of high quality work for very little pay - or to bid at a decent rate and win far fewer jobs. Unfortunately for the buyers on the site, those people who are bidding incredibly low on articles really do not have a full grasp of the English language, and are usually found lacking when it comes to writing skill.

I've learned to value my time and my skill. I've learned that VWorker is not my only option for finding work. Therefore, I'm very choosy about the jobs that I bid on at VWorker. I look at the topic for the requested articles to determine how much research I will need to do, and how hard that research may be. I look at the number of words that the buyer requires, and all other requirements of the buyer. If the article request is one that I consider to be quite easy - it requires very little research and very little time to write - I'm okay with bidding low, because I know that writing such an article won't take more than ten or fifteen minutes in most cases, and because I know that I can do x number of articles in x number of hours, earning x dollars, I can easily determine whether bidding low on a job is worth it to me or not.

I am happy that VWorker now offers an additional payday during the month, for a total of three paydays. I'm happy with the fact that my earnings are transferred directly to my PayPal account on those paydays as well. I am ecstatic that VWorker is no longer charging the worker 15% of the bid amount when a project is won. Instead, the only thing that VWorker charges me is $2 for transferring funds to my PayPal account. I am totally against having to pay to work, and I hated having to pay that fee.

Another potential fear of mine is the rating system, and the arbitration process. I've heard all of the horror stories out there, and so far have been very lucky in that I've never had a negative rating, and only two arbitration's that were self mediated. Those two arbitration's took place because my mother passed away, and I needed to travel out of state for that, and of course I needed time to grieve. I contacted the buyers immediately and let them know the situation - that I needed to cancel those jobs - and they were quite understanding and accommodating.

I am careful to take a close look at the work history of the employer or buyer before I bid on a job. I need to know how many arbitrations they have had. If they have a ton, and it looks as though they are constantly looking for any reason to get out of paying for work that has been done for them, I simply will not bid on that buyer's jobs to avoid that potential risk. I also look at the work history and ratings of the people who have done work for them and have given them less than perfect ratings - in an attempt to be fair and in an attempt to get a clear picture of what may or may not have happened. Sometimes, the bad rating for the buyer simply is not justified, and a bad rating for a worker, or an arbitration is completely justified. You have to go into it with an open mind.

As for the rating system, the concept itself is great. Unfortunately, even with changes to this system through the years, the system is still geared towards coding type work. It really isn't designed for employers (buyers) to effectively rate a writer, and I can see where a buyer may be confused by this, and end up not giving a writer the rating that they truly deserve - which could hurt that writers overall rating significantly. Again, I've been fortunate not to run into that problem, but I've heard about those writers who have had this problem.